


after images of summer

by torchsong (brella)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Pining, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 20:34:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17794292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brella/pseuds/torchsong
Summary: The summer between graduation and their first year of university is the hottest on record.





	after images of summer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [veridical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/veridical/gifts).



> Happy Valentine's Day, veridical! <3

 

The summer between graduation and their first year of university is the hottest on record. Kei is miserable. He has always been averse to that wretched season, as a concept, a resentment only exacerbated by three years of harrowing Tokyo training camps, but this one is especially offensive.

“Tsukki, did you die?” Yamaguchi asks.

 _Tsukki might as well have_ , Kei thinks crankily, spread-eagled on the floor of Yamaguchi’s dark living room in shorts and a t-shirt, encircled by three fans running on full blast.

Yamaguchi is lying on his stomach parallel to Kei, reading manga. His bangs are tied up over his forehead in a lime green hairtie. On anyone else it would look ridiculous, but on Yamaguchi, it’s just ridiculously cute, which just makes Kei more annoyed.  

Kei drops an arm across his eyes. He’d taken off his glasses because they kept slipping down the sweat on the bridge of his nose. Yamaguchi has drawn the curtains to keep out the relentless sun, but still Kei feels like something is straining his vision.

When he doesn’t answer, Yamaguchi sets down his book and bumps an elbow against Kei’s shoulder.

“Are you okay?” he asks softly, with genuine concern.

Kei lowers his arm and rolls his head to the side, eyes drifting up to Yamaguchi’s so that he can assure him that he is not, in fact, dead or comatose. Yamaguchi grins mischievously back, scrunching his nose, and even though Kei feels like he’s being teased, he can’t find the motivation to be mad.

Yamaguchi starts to reach for his book again, but his hand halts and hovers midway. He tilts his head, as if considering something, before looking back at Tsukishima, propping himself up on crossed arms.

“Want to do a rally in the yard?” he asks.

Kei makes what is no doubt a horrible face. “Are you insane?”

“If we slack off all summer, they’ll bench us in the first week!” Yamaguchi makes it sound like this would be tantamount to being thrown from a cliff. He slaps his palms determinedly onto the tatami and pushes himself up. “No way am I letting that happen! Come on!”

Kei doesn’t intend it, but his voice comes out in a tone dangerously close to a whine when he drops his arm to the floor. “Yamaguchi…”

Yamaguchi claps his hands together pleadingly. Kei can already feel his resistance and self-preservation instincts disintegrating. “Just for a little bit! Just, like, five receives!”

“You really think Tokai will care how I play if I’m _dead_?” Kei groans, scrubbing a hand over his face. “It’s _never_ just five receives with you.”

“I’ll buy you ice cream after,” Yamaguchi says.

His bribing tactics have not changed since elementary school, and really, Kei should be immune to them by now, but unfortunately, he isn’t. The whirring cicadas outside the open windows suddenly sound like they’re taking amusement in his suffering. Yamaguchi’s neck has a sheen of sweat to it, and the collar of his shirt is damp.

Kei looks away. “Two ice creams.”

Tadashi’s smile puts the stars to shame. “Deal!”

 

* * *

 

Yamaguchi’s yard has a zelkova tree, its branches crowded with bright green leaves. Yamaguchi lets Kei stand on the shady side, kicking up golden dust from the ground as he gets into position.

His freckles look so much more at home like this, bared from rolled-up sleeves in the relentless sunlight. Kei rolls the beat-up volleyball between his open palms, averting his eyes.

He tosses to Yamaguchi, who receives it effortlessly, sending it back in a perfect arc. Kei returns, Yamaguchi receives, return, receive, return, receive. Kei settles into the rhythm as he would settle into breathing. His mind, bogged down by the heat, starts to clear.

He and Yamaguchi talk about movies and dinosaurs and university, that formless promise looming on the horizon of each seemingly endless summer day. They’d both gotten into Tokai and they’d both signed up for the team, who had been more than happy to accept them, being that they’d played for Karasuno. Kei hadn’t said out loud that he hadn’t planned to play if they hadn’t let Yamaguchi on, too, but luckily they had brains, and that hadn’t been an issue.

He can’t blame them. Yamaguchi’s third year, his first as a regular, had seen him turning the tide on some of their most pivotal matches. And Kei had been silently, unbearably proud.

Watching twilight settle over the rooftops, watching the sharp focus in Yamaguchi’s pale eyes, Kei wants to forget about the stupid volleyball, wants to say _you’re the coolest person in the world_ , wants to take six steps forward and kiss his neck and hear what sound it makes—but he has concluded after much meticulous and careful research that those aren’t the kinds of things you do to a friend.

The ball bounces off of his sore, red forearms, sending a sting rushing across the skin. Yamaguchi grins at him, lifting his head to watch the path it makes in the air, and cries, “I won’t lose to you, Tsukki!”

Kei, panting, braces his hands on his knees and drops his head.

“Fine,” he says, “I give up,” but out of Yamaguchi’s sight, in the encroaching evening, he gives way to a smile and waits for the familiar burn to subside.

 

* * *

 

Six months later, in the campus courtyard with the maple, he learns the sound that comes from kissing Yamaguchi’s neck. His name, a whisper. His sleeve, crumpling in Yamaguchi’s hand. And Yamaguchi’s laugh, ecstatic, bewildered, beneath the falling snow.


End file.
